An interview with R.J. Ellory about  : 

The last highway

This time, you’re taking us to a poor part of America, the Appalachians. Did you try to avoid the stereotypes we sometimes read about the people who live there?

Yes, absolutely. So often, small communities such as those found in the Appalachians, are portrayed in a very narrow and biased manner. Through film, sometimes even novels, there seems to be a preconceived idea of attitude, behaviour and customs. For me, it was really important to understand and appreciate the roots of the culture. After all, the ancestors of those who live in the Appalachians present such a diverse mix of so many nationalities – French, German, Irish, English, Scots etc. Interestingly enough, the English that is spoken in this area of the United States is far closer to the English of Chaucer and Shakespeare than the English we currently speak in the United Kingdom. But it wasn’t just a matter of researching and appreciating the language and expressions, it was also hugely important to grasp the way in which such a defined and individual community lives and survives. I wanted to ensure – as much as I could – that I represented the characters faithfully and accurately.

It’s a real whodunit, but the way you are telling the story lets the emotions flow constantly, doesn’t it?

I think that’s my intention with every book. For me, the characters are the story. We talk about tension and the importance – as novelists – of writing in such a way that the reader feels that they have to keep turning the page. I think that’s achieved by creating characters that are as real as possible, characters that we can care about – both good and bad. That need to turn the page doesn’t just come from wanting to know what happens next in the plot, but also because you want to know what’s going to happen with the character you’re connecting with on an emotional level. For every reader it can be a different character, and sometimes we can go back and read a book we’ve read before and identify with someone else entirely. I think the greatest compliment an author can receive is when a reader feels like they’ve really come to know someone in a story, and they’re kind of sad to let them go when the story ends. That’s the emotional engagement I’m aiming for with each new cast of characters. When I am writing, I feel like they could be real people. That’s the way I want a reader to feel as well.

Victor is a truly complex character. Can you tell us about him?

Victor is a man who believes that being a man means that he should ignore his own emotions. Because of all that has happened in his life, he has come to the conclusion that the way to avoid hurt or loss or pain is to distance himself from people. People cause trouble, both in his job as a Sheriff and in his family. He believes that he will survive better alone, but slowly comes to the realisation that he has no actual life at all. Events force him to confront his own responsibility for what happened between himself and his brother, and this – ultimately – makes him confront his own failings. Only then, when he sees how he was also instrumental in everything that happened, can he accept that things need to change and that he is in the one that needs to change them. I believe all people are complex, of course, and only by getting inside their skin can we see our own similarities and differences. The most important thing is to make him a real person, at least for the duration of the story, and when you reach the end you feel that you know exactly how he is and how his future will now be different.

This story takes place in the 90s. It was very different to investigate back then, you had to do it face to face…

I very consciously avoid contemporary novels, especially when I am writing about any kind of investigation. I am not interested in how the internet or other technology can be used to locate people or discover their histories. I am just interested in dialogue, in the actual physical movement of people from one place to another, in the hard work that is required to identify facts and find evidence. The idea of having someone sit in front of a computer and find out all the things they need to know seems very dull to me! I have just completed writing a novel that is a twenty-year investigation, but all of it happened before cellphones and computers and DNA. People have to talk with another, they have to go and look for people, they have to cross state lines and actually track people down through their families and other contacts. That, for me, means that I keep writing about the thing that interest me most, and that thing is people and the psychology of the human condition.

Is it right to say that family is the soul of this novel?

Yes, most definitely. It is interesting to write about families, and in a way that’s the greatest challenge for me and the closest I get to actual “fiction”. I didn’t have the experience of a family unit or environment when I was growing up, so how parents and children, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles all relate and respond to one another is something I have to imagine. However, we are all people. We have so many common denominators in the way we communicate and interact, and it’s a matter of applying those to people who are also connected by blood. It has been said that your friends are the family you choose. When it comes to your relatives, you don’t have a choice, and it is entirely possible to be closely related to someone who is so very different from you, or someone that you really don’t care for. That’s a source of great interest to me, and provides another means by which I can explore the entire spectrum of human motions and individual psychology.

Catégories :Interviews littéraires

Tags:Entretien, Interview, R. J. Ellory